Is Failing in Iraq Better in the Long Run for America Than Succeeding in Iraq?

[SamurAchzar]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: SamurAchzar

Originally posted by: blackllotus

Originally posted by: SamurAchzar
I'd be curious to hear what makes Israel less civilized than, lets say, Britain. Or the US itself. I'd also like to hear how Israel consititues an Anti Arab/Muslim state when, despite the ongoing Arab conflict, more than 1.5 Million Muslim Arabs live in Israel as citiziens. That's 20% of the population. Even the US doesn't have a similar percentage of afro-americans.

Arabs are second class citizens in Israel.

Completely false. What Arabs are is a minority mostly unfit to live under the democratic system, and therefore left alone, enjoying some sort of unwritten autonomy. Many rules aren't enforced when it comes to Arabs. Obviously, they don't get the same opportunities either, sometimes, but that's the necessary evil for coexistence.
Yet they all have an Israeli ID and any official right any other citizen enjoys.

You will find, in the long run, that if you have necessary evils for coexistence you will become extinct. Such evils are never necessary and are only evil and nothing can stand against the Will of God to defeat evil. Ask Egypt.

Well enough, now tell me how you could integrate 1.5 million Arabs in a nation of 7 million people, without making them lose their heritage, habits or manners.
The bit about "necessary evil" describes this entire situation, not just the lack of opportunities for Arabs in Israel.
When they declaredly support Israel's enemies, when many of them call for Israel's destruction and fly the Palestinian flag, when some of them actively aid terrorists, then the partial, limited coexistence displayed in Israel turns to an achievement.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: shadow9d9
It isn't possible to succeed in Iraq. Period.

--Howard Dean

 

[Zebo]

Hell yes get out! Strategicaly the best thing for us to do is let them slaughter each other exploiting thier ethnic and sectarian divisions. aka divide and conquer wasting thier men materials and money over there instead of focusing on the USA. The Iran-Iraq conflict should have gone on forever! This "rebuilding excercise" which Bush falls victim to, due to PC western cultural relativism engrained in our culture, one which the president just can't beleive Iraqis will not behave just like Ohioans given half the chance will cost us trillions, lives and enevitable defeat as Muslims will never ever be moderate in the lands of dar-islam or accept infedels presence or ever be grateful for the billions in aid and rebuilding.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: SamurAchzar

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: SamurAchzar

Originally posted by: blackllotus

Originally posted by: SamurAchzar
I'd be curious to hear what makes Israel less civilized than, lets say, Britain. Or the US itself. I'd also like to hear how Israel consititues an Anti Arab/Muslim state when, despite the ongoing Arab conflict, more than 1.5 Million Muslim Arabs live in Israel as citiziens. That's 20% of the population. Even the US doesn't have a similar percentage of afro-americans.

Arabs are second class citizens in Israel.

Completely false. What Arabs are is a minority mostly unfit to live under the democratic system, and therefore left alone, enjoying some sort of unwritten autonomy. Many rules aren't enforced when it comes to Arabs. Obviously, they don't get the same opportunities either, sometimes, but that's the necessary evil for coexistence.
Yet they all have an Israeli ID and any official right any other citizen enjoys.

You will find, in the long run, that if you have necessary evils for coexistence you will become extinct. Such evils are never necessary and are only evil and nothing can stand against the Will of God to defeat evil. Ask Egypt.

Well enough, now tell me how you could integrate 1.5 million Arabs in a nation of 7 million people, without making them lose their heritage, habits or manners.
The bit about "necessary evil" describes this entire situation, not just the lack of opportunities for Arabs in Israel.
When they declaredly support Israel's enemies, when many of them call for Israel's destruction and fly the Palestinian flag, when some of them actively aid terrorists, then the partial, limited coexistence displayed in Israel turns to an achievement.

My guess would be that it's not about making them lose something but about creating an environment in which they have something to gain.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Hell yes get out! Strategicaly the best thing for us to do is let them slaughter each other exploiting thier ethnic and sectarian divisions. aka divide and conquer wasting thier men materials and money over there instead of focusing on the USA. The Iran-Iraq conflict should have gone on forever! This "rebuilding excercise" which Bush falls victim to, due to PC western cultural relativism engrained in our culture, one which the president just can't beleive Iraqis will not behave just like Ohioans given half the chance will cost us trillions, lives and enevitable defeat as Muslims will never ever be moderate in the lands of dar-islam or accept infedels presence or ever be grateful for the billions in aid and rebuilding.

It seems that Zebo has become as culturally relativistic as Bush himself. Both claim 'divine' knowledge as to how "they' are. Both are idealistic dreamers. Bush thinks he knows how they will become Ohioans and Zebo sees they will stay monsters based on his own diagnosis in ignorance. We are all the same and want the same things but this is knowable only to those who know who they are. The hate of others for how they are, how we actually only see them, is the hatred of our own self. Zebo is saying there is a part of himself nobody should ever trust, that it is a monster and reminds him of 'them'. Bush at least has some notion that somewhere inside of us there is something good. It's just that it's as far beyond Ohioan as a human is beyond the amoeba.

 

[straightalker]

The unConstitutional Iraq war and the subsequent 3 year Halibuton gravy train express that has drained the USA Treasury is actually going exactly as planned. Really. It states within their own internal documents among the various scum that direct the policy there that the goal was from the start to break up Iraq into ethnic/religious parts and create constant violence between those parts. Generally Sunni, Shi-ite and Kurd.

What i find to be so outrageous about all that disgusting subterfuge is the hubris of there's to use and abuse my USA soldiers over and over and over and over again there like they were just work horses.

Well it's definitely a disaster for America but the Powerz That Be could not care less.

Let's count the dead soldiers. The real number is way over 10000. Injured is God only knows. 30,000+ at least. Dead Iraqis and various others total 120 a day or 45000 per year that we know of.

The kicker is it's all for nothing. Falluja has been overun again. It's worse than ever in terms of the total area of Iraq that's now out of the control of the USA Military. But getting back to where i started. All the killing and civil conflict is the goal. The goal is to keep it nessessary forever for the USA Military to be there. Peace would mean going home and relenquishing control. That's not the goal of PNAC. That goal is to dominate the entire Middle East and the SouthCentral "stan" region of Asia. Kazakstan. etc.

 

[shadow9d9]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: shadow9d9
It isn't possible to succeed in Iraq. Period.

--Howard Dean

Huh?

 

[2Xtreme21]

I wasn't alive during the Vietnam war, but was the rhetoric this strong back then too? Things like "communism will win and overtake the world if we don't stay the course"? And ya know, we pulled out, and the Soviet bloc crumbled 15 years later. But hey, history doesn't matter, right?

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: 2Xtreme21
I wasn't alive during the Vietnam war, but was the rhetoric this strong back then too? Things like "communism will win and overtake the world if we don't stay the course"? And ya know, we pulled out, and the Soviet bloc crumbled 15 years later. But hey, history doesn't matter, right?

I hear there was great concern that if we didn't stop them Texas would be next. I heard people talk about them times as though there was some huge domino that was going to fall and crush half of civilization and it would knock over one that would kill the other half. But I think maybe these stories are exaggerations. I have never seen a domino that big before.

 

[Drift3r]

To quote Howard Stern..."The best thing you can do to the Middle-East is to carpet bomb the region with Playboy and Penthouse magazines and send over Score strippers." The Middle-East will change when it moves away from being a region of social religious conservatism and it move toward being culturally and religiously more socially liberal region. When you start seeing gay marriages and posters of strippers advertising strip clubs plastered all over the place then you'll know that there has been big change. Democracy and political change are just fluffy buzz words.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Termagant
I think one of the major outcomes of the Iraq war is that any Commander in Chief for the next few years will be more careful in the application of military force. And any Congress of the United States will be more hesitent to write a blank check for military action. The Bush Administration cavalierly invaded Iraq and Congress did not provide adequate checking or discussion. Advice from some military personnel was ignored so that the war would be "cheap and easy." With the problems in Iraq, the philosophy used when invading Iraq is weakened in serious circles of debate.

If the US had succeeded in quickly pacifying and democratizing Iraq, as ridiculous as that sounds, would the long term consequences have been worse? With added confidence in the Iraq invasion method, would Bush have invaded Iran and other Middle Eastern states? And would future presidents be tempted to quickly resort to military force? If problems didn't occur in Iraq, they could easily have occured in other invaded nations, with worse consequences.

In some polls of people around the world they list America as the greatest threat to world stability. Is the world safer when America is hesitant to use military force? Is the loss of life in Iraq of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians worth it to make future American leaders more cautious and thoughful in their use of force, even if that attitude only lasts for a decade?

In the future, will Bush look back and think that invading Iraq was good for the nation, because it provided a cautionary example for future presidents? That is an interesting legacy.

1. The 'war' itself was actually cheap and easy. as has just about every war we have been in since Vietnam. Look at every military action we have taken since the mid-80's, they were all cheap and easy. Panama, Grenada, 1st Iraq war, even Somalia (we kicked major ass, withdrew on our own cause of the fear of taking more deaths) Haiti, Afghanistan and this war.
The problem we have run into in this war is the same one Clinton kept running into, how to build a nation. We seemed to have forgotten the lessons of Haiti and Somalia when we entered Iraq. We thought everyone there would be so happy to be rid of Saddam that peace would break out... oops.
I think our failure in Iraq will lead future presidents to return to the use of limited force. We may not invade Iran, Syria or N. Korea, but we may launch some air strikes or go after their leaders. We are far more likely to bomb Iran's nuke sites and back the people who want a new government than we are to just invade Iran.

2. Anyone who says we are a greater threat to world stability than Iran or North Korea is totally off their rocker. Of course that is the opinion of someone sitting in America. Someone sitting in the Middle East or even Europe may see us invading Iraq and Afghanistan and fail to grasp the big picture at work. We are eliminating the worlds most dangerous governments, but to some people it may look like we are just going around imposing our will on everyone.
Actually a very interesting question when you look at it from other countries points of views.

 

[shadow9d9]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn

Originally posted by: Termagant
I think one of the major outcomes of the Iraq war is that any Commander in Chief for the next few years will be more careful in the application of military force. And any Congress of the United States will be more hesitent to write a blank check for military action. The Bush Administration cavalierly invaded Iraq and Congress did not provide adequate checking or discussion. Advice from some military personnel was ignored so that the war would be "cheap and easy." With the problems in Iraq, the philosophy used when invading Iraq is weakened in serious circles of debate.

If the US had succeeded in quickly pacifying and democratizing Iraq, as ridiculous as that sounds, would the long term consequences have been worse? With added confidence in the Iraq invasion method, would Bush have invaded Iran and other Middle Eastern states? And would future presidents be tempted to quickly resort to military force? If problems didn't occur in Iraq, they could easily have occured in other invaded nations, with worse consequences.

In some polls of people around the world they list America as the greatest threat to world stability. Is the world safer when America is hesitant to use military force? Is the loss of life in Iraq of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians worth it to make future American leaders more cautious and thoughful in their use of force, even if that attitude only lasts for a decade?

In the future, will Bush look back and think that invading Iraq was good for the nation, because it provided a cautionary example for future presidents? That is an interesting legacy.

1. The 'war' itself was actually cheap and easy. as has just about every war we have been in since Vietnam. Look at every military action we have taken since the mid-80's, they were all cheap and easy. Panama, Grenada, 1st Iraq war, even Somalia (we kicked major ass, withdrew on our own cause of the fear of taking more deaths) Haiti, Afghanistan and this war.
The problem we have run into in this war is the same one Clinton kept running into, how to build a nation. We seemed to have forgotten the lessons of Haiti and Somalia when we entered Iraq. We thought everyone there would be so happy to be rid of Saddam that peace would break out... oops.
I think our failure in Iraq will lead future presidents to return to the use of limited force. We may not invade Iran, Syria or N. Korea, but we may launch some air strikes or go after their leaders. We are far more likely to bomb Iran's nuke sites and back the people who want a new government than we are to just invade Iran.

2. Anyone who says we are a greater threat to world stability than Iran or North Korea is totally off their rocker. Of course that is the opinion of someone sitting in America. Someone sitting in the Middle East or even Europe may see us invading Iraq and Afghanistan and fail to grasp the big picture at work. We are eliminating the worlds most dangerous governments, but to some people it may look like we are just going around imposing our will on everyone.
Actually a very interesting question when you look at it from other countries points of views.

Yeah, Iraq was definitely one of the most dangerous governments...

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: shadow9d9

Yeah, Iraq was definitely one of the most dangerous governments...

Yes, I belive a pretty strong case can be made that it "WAS" one of the most dangerous governments.

- Clearly, under Saddam Iraq did invade it's neighbor in a an unprovoked war, committing some really nasty war crimes on a pretty large scale. The raping, plunder and destruction of oil fields (eco disaster as well) was not committed by a few rouge soldiers.

- Clearly Iraq was, at one time, engaged in a unreasonable arms build up with such nasty stuff as chemical weapons (which it showed it was willing to use on a fairly large scale against civilians) and George Bull's "super cannon" for lobbing large (chemical weapon) projectiles a great distance.

- Clearly, the Saddam regime engaged in brutal torture & mass murder of it's own citizens in an effort to repress any dissent.

- Saddam made no secret of his desire to be the "Saloman" (sp?) of his generation, and exert control over his the other Arab nations. Other Arab nations felt he was dangerous.

- Sadam granted refuge to well known terrorists (e.g., the mastermind of the Achilles Lauro high-jacking).

A better question is when did the term "was' become applicable; the past tense of the "state of being"?

Fern

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: shadow9d9

Originally posted by: ahurtt

Originally posted by: shadow9d9
"Is Failing in Iraq Better in the Long Run for America Than Succeeding in Iraq?"

It isn't possible to succeed in Iraq. Period.

False. That depends entirely on your definition of success.

There are no definitions of success that would resemble the situation in Iraq now or in the next decade at this rate.

Perhaps you are a pessimist, or maybe a realist? Time will tell.

My own, perhaps modest in your estimation, definition of success is that they continue with democratic elections. Even if they elect sectarian Islamic parties/rulers. Just so the country doesn't devolve into another dictatorship (or oligarchy) with no real elections.

Over time, we'll (and more importantly, the citizens of Iraq) see such Islamic parties actually try to handle the running of a country. As we see every where, being in opposition is muuch easier than being in power where true election exist. I suspect that issuing fatwa's and calling for jihad is far easier than delivering basic services like garbage pickup, water & electricity etc.

I also believe that path (continuing democratic elections), no matter how "rocky" (IMHO, most reasonable people expect such transformation & cultural reformation to be difficult), will eventually result in reduced sectarian violence and greater freedoms. How long? Good question, I am unaware of any reference for comparison.

Democracy wasn't an overnight development in the West either. Nor was democracy the first government on the North American continent (natives had tribalism, and the first Euro settlers had experiments with communism).

As far as your comment "at this rate" - there have been several successful elections held in Iraq. My definition of success does not hinge on the outcome (or, who was elected). But rather the fact they were held and with a large turn-out. The start is not as bad as you make it out to be. Perhaps, our difference in opinion is one of "expectations".

Fern

Fern

 

[piasabird]

I dont know what failing in Iraq means. It is up to Iraq to dertermine its destiny.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker
Sure they did, they had the option of engaging in a prisoner swap and getting their soldiers back. Subsequently they could've put pressure on the Lebanese government to reign in on Hezbollah with the threat of war. The fact that Israel reacted the way it did along with Seymor Hersh's article makes their claim of having no choice but war dubious at best.

To reward murder invites murder.